280,000 pro-China astroturfers are running amok online

Can a country the size of China really influence online political debate on …

If you thought corporate "astroturfing" (fake grassroots activity) was a problem at sites like Yelp and Amazon that feature user reviews of products, imagine how much worse it would be if the US government employed a couple hundred thousand people to "shape the debate" among online political forums. Crazy, right? What government would ever attempt it?

According to noted China researcher Rebecca MacKinnon, the answer is China, which allegedly employs 280,000 people to troll the Internet and make the government look good.

MacKinnon's discussion of Chinese astroturfing measures turns up in testimony that she prepared from a Congressional hearing this month. When that hearing was eventually rescheduled, MacKinnon was no longer on the witness list, so she released her prepared remarks (PDF) anyway.

The government increasingly combines censorship and surveillance measures with pro-active efforts to steer online conversations in the direction it prefers. In 2008 the Hong Kong-based researcher David Bandurski determined that at least 280,000 people had been hired at various levels of government to work as “online commentators.” Known derisively as the “fifty cent party,” these people are paid to write postings that show their employers in a favorable light in online chat rooms, social networking services, blogs, and comments sections of news websites. Many more people do similar work as volunteers—recruited from among the ranks of retired officials as well as college students in the Communist Youth League who aspire to become Party members.

This approach is similar to a tactic known as “astro-turfing” in American parlance, now commonly used by commercial advertising firms, public relations companies, and election campaigns around the world. In many provinces it is now also standard practice for government officials - particularly at the city and county level - to work to co-opt and influence independent online writers by throwing special conferences for local bloggers, or inviting them to special press events or news conferences about issues of local concern.

That last sentence about co-opting bloggers certainly isn't limited to China; US companies have perfected the practice, and government PR people dole out interviews and access to journalists in ways often designed to shape opinions or coverage. But still—280,000 people paid to permeate message boards and e-mail lists, all backing the government's line? The mind boggles.

MacKinnon's testimony, well worth reading in full, notes that Chinese citizens aren't helpless creatures of astroturf, filtering, censorship, and intimidation. People have developed countermeasures, including (these are direct quotes):

Informal anti-censorship support networks: I have attended gatherings of bloggers and journalists in China—with varying degrees of organization or spontaneousness—where participants devoted significant amounts of time to teaching one another how to use circumvention tools to access blocked websites

Distributed web-hosting assistance networks: I am aware of people who have strong English language and technical skills, as well as overseas credit cards, who are helping friends and acquaintances in China to purchase inexpensive space on overseas web hosting services, then set up independent blogs using free open-source software

Crowdsourced "opposition research": With the Chinese government’s Green Dam censorware edict last year, we have seen the emergence of loosely organized "opposition research" networks. Last June a group of Chinese computer programmers and bloggers collectively wrote a report exposing Green Dam’s political and religious censorship, along with many of its security flaws

Preservation and relay of censored content: I have noticed a number of people around the Chinese blogosphere and in chatrooms who make a regular habit of immediately downloading interesting articles, pictures, and videos which they think have a chance of being blocked or removed. They then repost these materials in a variety of places, and relay them to friends through social networks and e-mail lists.

Then comes our favorite: dirty jokes as a form of protest.

In 2009, Internet censorship tightened considerably. Many lively blogging platforms and social networks where heated political discussions were known to take place were shut down under the guise of an anti-porn crackdown. In response, an anonymous Shanghai-based jokester created an online music video called “Ode to the Grass Mud Horse”—whose technically innocent lyrics, sung by a children’s chorus over video of alpaca sheep, contained a string of highly obscene homonyms. The video spawned an entire genre of anti-censorship jokes and videos involving mythical animals whose names sound similar to official slogans and obscenities of various kinds. This viral pranksterism created an outlet for people to vent about censorship, poke fun at the government, and raise awareness among many people who are not comfortable discussing such matters in a direct way.

71 Reader Comments

From now on it's going to be increasingly difficult to tell good information from planted information on the internet as governments start to get into putting major orginized effort into controlling information disclosure and planting misinformation.

I definitely think this is an unspoken issue facing internet forums and discussion groups. Comments sections for some people are a way of gauging opinion, or are mere entertainment; but either way, some people put a lot of stock in information derived from user-submitted comments.

I wonder if there's any conceivable way to leverage heuristics to identify astroturfers from casual observers? This, of course, aside from the traditional "new commenters" vs. "established commenters" or "up and downranking people's posts," etc. Perhaps that is the only feasible solution, but those seem more akin to technology-related forums than mainstream news forums.

Likewise, I don't think this is isolated to simply the internet. I imagine such an issue does, and always has, plague news media in general.

EDIT: Clarified the second paragraph -- I meant in addition to the seemingly manual methods mentioned in the article.

In response, an anonymous Shanghai-based jokester created an online music video called “Ode to the Grass Mud Horse”—whose technically innocent lyrics, sung by a children’s chorus over video of alpaca sheep, contained a string of highly obscene homonyms

Creepy stuff. There are a couple of people who comment on WSJ articles having to do with China, that always seem to take highly pro-PRC-Gov't stances. I always wondered about that and why they didn't comment on any other articles.

Also, when I first saw "fifty-cent party" I thought it was a well-known rapper having a blowout bash at his place.

...imagine how much worse it would be if the US government employed a couple hundred thousand people to "shape the debate" among online political forums. Crazy, right?

Who needs government "astroturfers" when you have pro-establishment corporate media?

I thought it was the liberal media. It's always so hard to keep up with the villains of the day.

It would be nice if the US would try something like this in response. Perhaps this could be a stopgap, makework-type program for the unemployed. With the economy the way it is, we could easily overwhelm the Chinese at their own game.

The West,keep going!Defame,humiliate and slander China.Do you think I am also a 50-cents-party member as I always confront western websites?The core value in the so-called western democracy is freedom of speech,isn't it?So all sorts of comments should be encouraged rather than suppressed.

I thought it was the liberal media. It's always so hard to keep up with the villains of the day.

It would be nice if the US would try something like this in response. Perhaps this could be a stopgap, makework-type program for the unemployed. With the economy the way it is, we could easily overwhelm the Chinese at their own game.

I can see this backfiring on the Chinese. Like any troll, once its known you are one, you're credibility goes out the window. By China's government officially backing a "troll" army, its shooting itself in the foot by instantly calling into suspicion, any positive comments about the government, valid or not.

Aside from detection mechanisms, what helps minimize the effect of trolls is an informed audience, that asks questions and forms opinions not on hearsay, but on confirmed facts and data. Where we become susceptible to "Trolling" is when we rely on our bias and preformed opinions to draw conclusions.

The West,keep going!Defame,humiliate and slander China.Do you think I am also a 50-cents-party member as I always confront western websites?The core value in the so-called western democracy is freedom of speech,isn't it?So all sorts of comments should be encouraged rather than suppressed.

There's nothing wrong with people leaving comments, the issue is when you are getting paid to make certain comments by a company (or in this case a country) then it gets to be an issue.

Also, your comments are "encouraged rather than suppressed." here on Ars, unlike many comments would be in China.

As a Taiwanese I hate China with a passion. Not even our popular telnet-based BBS is free from these astroturfers. The funny thing is that Chinese sensorship automatically disconnects them if some "keywords" are to be displayed on screen, so in political discussion boards these keywords come in handy in dispelling these trolls.

Well, this certainly adds to the Luddites' (yes, I have read the Ars article; yes, I am aware that this use is not historically correct) argument that you can't trust information that you find on the Internet--that, somehow, books are immune to this sort of thing.

The West,keep going!Defame,humiliate and slander China.Do you think I am also a 50-cents-party member as I always confront western websites?The core value in the so-called western democracy is freedom of speech,isn't it?So all sorts of comments should be encouraged rather than suppressed.

There's nothing wrong with people leaving comments, the issue is when you are getting paid to make certain comments by a company (or in this case a country) then it gets to be an issue.

Also, your comments are "encouraged rather than suppressed.", which they are, unlike many comments would be in China.

Just assume that 'you are getting paid to make certain comments by a company (or in this case a country)' is true,what issue can it be?I agree with most of the pro-Chinese comments on western websites because they are telling more truth about China than the western media.And even if the Chinese government did hire 280,000 (how true is this figure?) people to comment on various websites,majority of them would work on domestic Chinese websites.Overseas Chinese have more interest in and are more capable of commenting on western websites.And they love their country by heart not by money!

Paul Linebarger wrote science fiction as Cordwainer Smith. Here's a story about him from the intro to one of his books:"While in Korea, Linebarger masterminded the surrender of thousands of Chinese troops who considered it shameful to give up their arms. He drafted leaflets explaining how the soldiers could surrender by shouting the Chinese words for 'love,' 'duty,' 'humanity,' and 'virtue'--words that happened, when pronounced in that order, to sound like 'I surrender' in English. He considered this act to be the single most worthwhile thing he had done in his life."

No different than all the pro-Israel comments on the British media news websites. No doubt the same in America too, and Germany, France, etc.

Yes!This really made me feel sick of the western censorship!Guardian always removes comments,so does BBC.But for the sake of propaganda,the western media insistently pick on China while not mentioning their own good 'deeds'.

I thought the same thing. The amount of pro-china posts here that ignore all facts and rational thought is more than I would expect on a random tech website.

Also- I had never heard of the term "astroturfer". I quite like it.

Well, how do you think you have all the 'facts' and rational thoughts but they don't?Is it some sort of arrogance?I bet you don't have all the 'facts' if you can't read Chinese!

That's precisely the problem. Information obtainable by normal Chinese people is most of the time censored and spoon-fed. You hardly see any "bad" news on CCTV. Without the Chinese government constantly covering up what's ugly inside I doubt there will be that many patriotic commenters on the web. And this is just wrong.

A government runs it's own PR / Propaganda campaign. How is that surprising? Citizens have the right to kiss their government's ass. If they forfeit that right, a "Citizen" will be designated to do so in their place.

The West,keep going!Defame,humiliate and slander China.Do you think I am also a 50-cents-party member as I always confront western websites?The core value in the so-called western democracy is freedom of speech,isn't it?So all sorts of comments should be encouraged rather than suppressed.

There's nothing wrong with people leaving comments, the issue is when you are getting paid to make certain comments by a company (or in this case a country) then it gets to be an issue.

Also, your comments are "encouraged rather than suppressed.", which they are, unlike many comments would be in China.

Just assume that 'you are getting paid to make certain comments by a company (or in this case a country)' is true,what issue can it be?

This issue is that it's astroturfing -- and probably not the posters actual stance on the subject being discussed. So you are fine with astroturfing? If you want to buy a laptop and go to Amazon to research your purchase and there are 10 comments that say this laptop is the best ever, but in actuality it's a piece of junk and all 10 posts were by the company that manufactured the laptop -- you wouldn't feel ripped off?

Quote:

I agree with most of the pro-Chinese comments on western websites because they are telling more truth about China than the western media.And even if the Chinese government did hire 280,000 (how true is this figure?) people to comment on various websites,majority of them would work on domestic Chinese websites.Overseas Chinese have more interest in and are more capable of commenting on western websites.And they love their country by heart not by money!

I'm not questioning the posts of overseas Chinese, and I'm not against any Chinese person posting their thought on any web site -- as long as it's their thoughts, not something they were paid to post.

No different than all the pro-Israel comments on the British media news websites. No doubt the same in America too, and Germany, France, etc.

Yes!This really made me feel sick of the western censorship!Guardian always removes comments,so does BBC.But for the sake of propaganda,the western media insistently pick on China while not mentioning their own good 'deeds'.

These kinds of posts frequently show up on the Economist. The PRC must be rationing whitespace. I enjoy these posts for the humor value.

I thought the same thing. The amount of pro-china posts here that ignore all facts and rational thought is more than I would expect on a random tech website.

Also- I had never heard of the term "astroturfer". I quite like it.

Well, how do you think you have all the 'facts' and rational thoughts but they don't?Is it some sort of arrogance?I bet you don't have all the 'facts' if you can't read Chinese!

That's precisely the problem. Information obtainable by normal Chinese people is most of the time censored and spoon-fed. You hardly see any "bad" news on CCTV. Without the Chinese government constantly covering up what's ugly inside I doubt there will be that many patriotic commenters on the web. And this is just wrong.

There's no doubt that CCTV is the mouthpiece of the Chinese government,but I don't see any difference in BBC,CNN whatsoever.Don't lightly assume that in China people only rely on CCTV for information,they know it's more about propaganda most of the time and fortunately the internet is a more important source of information.You would say 'it's heavily censored as well,not true' blah blah.But it's not totally true.I don't want to waste more words on this because if you can read Chinese websites you will know.

No different than all the pro-Israel comments on the British media news websites. No doubt the same in America too, and Germany, France, etc.

Yes!This really made me feel sick of the western censorship!Guardian always removes comments,so does BBC.But for the sake of propaganda,the western media insistently pick on China while not mentioning their own good 'deeds'.

You may have a point with the BBC, but the Guardian, and most other "western website" that are censoring their comments are privately owned companies, not the government, and private companies don't have to abide by free speech. A private company censoring speech, as opposed to the government doing the same, is a huge difference.

I've seen it more than a few times, especially when reading a forbes article about china bad, good, indifferent, but the posts are so obvious, so unsubstantiated by facts, sometimes hitting 4chan levels of inanity, that I am willing to wager that 90% of all readers of such a post will mentally hit /delete

This only gets more ridiculous every day. If I was running some news site or forum, I would simply block any post from chinese IPs, pure and simple. Or, at least block anonymous posts, AND impose extra registration procedures from users from China - e.g. a valid/verifiable credit card number or PayPal account.

This is why any site that allows comments needs peer moderation of comments, so that crap like trolls and astroturfers get modded down to oblivion and moved down to the end of the results, and hopefully so that insightful comments that contribute to the discussion float up to the top. Any unmoderated discussion on the internet (and by that, I mean not peer moderated - hired staff could never keep up and avoid bias) is vulnerable to this kind of corruption, and their value suffers for it. Slashdot already solved this problem for everyone long ago.

I've seen it more than a few times, especially when reading a forbes article about china bad, good, indifferent, but the posts are so obvious, so unsubstantiated by facts, sometimes hitting 4chan levels of inanity, that I am willing to wager that 90% of all readers of such a post will mentally hit /delete

But that's just temporary,right? Sort of like how Al Qaeda figured out the US was looking for Arab looking men from middle east region airports, so they just switched to an African based out of Nigeria.

The Chinese government censors smart and determined, so eventually someone will clue them in on what makes a post over-the-top and uncredible and they'll switch to the more nuanced arguments. Politicians do this with ease to muddy the waters and the Chinese government have very experienced politicians and tacticians.

I think transparency is the best policy. Any poster should have the first 2 octets of their IP shown and the geolocation of the state/province. That gives you reasonable anonymity while giving the other readers some background by which to judge the authenticity of your posts. If you're claiming to be a poster from Malaysia, but your IP consistently shows you from Beijing and you only comment on China topics, well then we'll be armed with a bit more information by which to judge your credibility.